I can feel the struggle in the mind of the English gentleman entangled as it is in “natural history” as it observes a minor event on the garden path, yet given that mind, the event raises specters that raise questions that raise . . . doubts? and shadows of doubts. Perhaps the Adaddin piece would fall to a more extreme modernist editorial sensibility, but it helps set the cultural scene: “grotesque and implacable” indeed! What a world!

I guess you’re right that the Aladdin piece would not find its way into the modernist canon, Tom 🙂 But I’m pleased that you feel these verses point towards questions and doubts. They are in part a follow-up to the poem The Young Philosopher.

John, I have been thinking a lot about the massive extinction going on now and wondering why we have all not been out in the streets raising hell about it. I wrote a sonnet,

“By God, They’re Protecting Salamanders
Instead of Human Beings”

An Italian Sonnet

When Darwin saw gradation in a finch
That flits about Galapagous , he saw
One species modified in beak and claw
By choices made adapting to the flinch
Of circumstances born out of the wrench
Of geologic time, the pitch and yaw
Of land and ocean, weather systems raw
With winds that shape the land that rainstorms drench.

But in his old age earthworms sang the song
That sirened through the studies that he did ,
The deaf and blind regurgitator dug
Into plain ground turned soil, the endless round
Of earth built by the living plows that slid
Fecundity out of the realm of slugs.

that is both an explanation and a denial, I suppose, of the explanation for why we aren’t raising hell even though the clock of doom seems to be imbedded in the fact that humankind is truly extincting a valuable part of the earth.

I find “Behold the Beetle” seems to resonate with some of my current thought. It is true.

“It is Other, it is Alien, and yet like the djinn
or man
it is made it might say in the image of God…”

And we should realize that we should

” Stand back:
it may fly, it may rise; it could block out
the sun.”

What marvels of creation we can find:

In the soil among the roots is the pupa:
imprisoned
in its cell, the pale grub lying squeezed
and latent
waiting until time, DNA or the sun will
summon it –

The apple is the fruit of knowledge, is it not?

In the old lamp is a mis-formed genie that is the essence of magic, but his grossness is what we notice, ” grotesque and implacable,” not the magic of a genie erupting from an old bottle.

This poem, like so many of your poems, certainly leads me down a “thinking” path.

I’m so glad you enjoyed this one Thomas and I’m very interested to read your sonnet which resonates with concern for the natural world and delight in its creatures (and as always is impeccably crafted). Thanks for sharing it. You might be interested to hear that Darwin’s house is not far from where we live in SE England and you can walk round the garden where he conducted his research into those “living ploughs” (inspired expression, that!). Incidentally, thank you for pointing up the significance of the apple tree in my own poem. It’s very good to hear from you.